IBM Mainframe Forum

Hello MF Guys,

Recently, I use DSNTIAUL utility to unloaded a table to a dataset A, but when I browse A, just some messy code I viewed, how can I view the dataset, can anyone give me a hand?

Thanks & Regards
Kevin

If you are expecting to see neat columns of data when you browse the data set, you need to be aware that DB2 does not unload data in human-readable format. If you are expecting something else, you need to explain in more detail -- with CODEd displays -- what it is you are expecting and what you are seeing.

Hello,

If you view the dataset and enter HEX ON you will be able to see all of the packed-decial or binary fields.

Robert Sample wrote:If you are expecting to see neat columns of data when you browse the data set, you need to be aware that DB2 does not unload data in human-readable format. If you are expecting something else, you need to explain in more detail -- with CODEd displays -- what it is you are expecting and what you are seeing.

dick scherrer wrote:Hello,

If you view the dataset and enter HEX ON you will be able to see all of the packed-decial or binary fields.

Hi Robert, Dick,

what I mean is that if the table has a row like "1 2 3", when these data unloaded to dataset, I wish to view it also is "1 2 3", maybe be dataset is in HEX format, but I think if there are some methods or utilities to view the dataset.

Thanks & Regards
Kevin

but I think if there are some methods or utilities to view the dataset.

well Your thinking is just wrong...
wiser to stop thinking and start reading the manuals,

the unloaded data contains the data and additional control info
so You will have to bear that the unloaded thing is unreadable ASIS
and the only way to <look> at it, is with HEX on from whatever <browsing> tool You might use.

Hi Enrico,

I used FileManager to view VSAM file before, VSAM file is somewhat like Table, so I think that there may be exist some utilities to help me to view the unloaded dataset. I want to try FileManager, but I don't know how, do you have any idea?

regards
Kevin

I think you need to go way back to the A B Cs of mainframe - in fact there are manuals for just that. A VSAM file is a 'container' for storing data. That data may be in plain text, biary, hex (all data is binary and hex anyway), packed decimal - whatever the program describes the data as. Tables are just data that is stored in VSAM files in whatever format DB2 wants.

so I think that there may be exist some utilities to help me to view the unloaded dataset.

Sometimes, your thinking is wrong. This is one of those times.

An unloaded data base file is generally unreadable by humans -- period. You can use hex displays and some interpretation to understand the data, but in general only character fields will be human-readable at all, and then only if the code page the data is in matches the code page of the terminal.

Robert Sample wrote:An unloaded data base file is generally unreadable by humans -- period.

Doesn't the real DB2 unload utility (not the DSNTIAUL program) unload to external formats by default?

Hello,

Just curious - aren't binary and packed-decimal data external formats?

Never thought about it. When data has been backed up (unloaded) it has been processed by code rather than iebiball . . . If the data was for human comsumption, it was "extracted" and usually formatted.